Beyond these strategic capabilities which are an imperative to maintain onshore, there will often be industrial capabilities within different segments that are
important to maintain onshore to secure our operational independence. The remainder of this annex covers other important industrial segments and
outlines where that consideration is most significant, based on our national security requirements and the state of the relevant domestic and international markets.
Complex Weapons
Complex Weapons – defined as strategic and tactical weapons reliant upon
guidance systems to achieve precision effects – can give the Armed Forces unique capabilities and provide battle winning effects. By giving commanders confidence in weapons effects, they can ensure that military objectives can be realistically, safely and legally achieved, attacking enemy forces and facilities (including both highly mobile and
hardened targets) while mitigating the risk to civilians and our own and coalition forces. Maintaining their capability is dependent on protecting the highly advanced technology involved, with a deep understanding of the platforms, networks and other systems which host and enable them. On operations, they may need adapting in real time to reflect different environments, target sets and even individual missions.
Maintaining UK industrial capability in these areas is vital to the UK’s
operational independence. To this end, we will seek to maintain the ability to design, develop, test, manufacture and modify complex weapons, as well as integrate them with wider systems and sensors, within the UK (for instance, we are investing in integrating more UK weapons onto Typhoon and the Lightning II aircraft.). It is particularly important, given the safety and lethality aspects of complex weapons, that they are
underpinned by reliable and assured test and evaluation capabilities. It will also be essential for the UK to work
internationally to develop future
capabilities, utilising effective industrial partnerships, to ensure effective co-development of future complex weapons and associated systems.
Our existing approach to the complex weapons segment means that UK industry has the capability to deliver the majority of our requirements, underpinned by export success. The UK’s partnership with MBDA since 2010, through the Portfolio Management Arrangement (PMA), has delivered operational independence and high-end military capabilities, and retained industrial capability in MBDA and its supply chain.
This has been enabled by the introduction of a ‘family’ based approach underpinned by Commonality, Modularity and Re-use principles, which leads to fewer bespoke components, sub-systems and products.
With only five families of weapons within the MOD/MBDA PMA, the cost of
platform integration has significantly reduced and MBDA has been able to forge different relationships with key suppliers, with longer-term, portfolio-like
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approaches flowing into the supply chain and increasing productivity.
This has been underpinned by a joint focus on the long-term engineering, scientific and technical skills across all the necessary disciplines. For example, from 2010 to 2020 there was a significant growth in the volume of integration
activity. The volume of work required the enterprise (MOD and industry, both MBDA and platform producers) to build capability and capacity with targeted interventions within the supply chain in key skill areas and long-term workforce planning. This was enabled through innovative commercial and collaborative models and led to successes such as Project Centurion, which integrated Storm Shadow, Brimstone and Meteor onto Typhoon and allowed the early retirement of Tornado. The Portfolio approach
generates longer-term industrial confidence to make the necessary investments in skills and productivity, such as in Bolton where MBDA has invested in a new factory and the recently opened Integrated Logistics Centre. To date, the partnership has significantly improved the company’s manufacturing and test capabilities, whilst improving value-for-money for the taxpayer, contributing to efficiencies worth over
£2.35bn over the last 10 years.
For other providers, Thales UK already provides around 20% of the UK’s Complex Weapons from their site in Northern Ireland and has a
complementary capability focused on MOD’s lightweight weapon requirements.
Historically, the MOD has met these through discrete procurements.
There are likely to still be some need to procure off-the-shelf complex weapons from other suppliers than MBDA and Thales and we will continue to do so, mindful of the implications for industrial capabilities and how we maintain our operational independence. The MOD is currently exploring how we move the MBDA relationship forward for the next 10 years, as well as options for new
relationships and potentially portfolio procurement with other suppliers.
Novel Weapons
Novel Weapons, such as directed energy weapons, are expected to change
radically how armed forces fight and operate. They are high impact, versatile and can have effect from tactical to strategic levels of operation. They will transform supply chains from the earliest design and production through to reload and replacement. Many of the same operational independence considerations apply as for complex weapons,
notwithstanding that novel weapons may not rely on guidance systems to the same degree and the safety issues may differ.
The UK has a technological lead and our industries are investing heavily, building on the Weapons Science and Technology Centre which has provided a centre of excellence for weapons research over the last ten years. In 2020, MOD signed the
£300m Weapons Sector Research Framework contract with QinetiQ which offers a broader range of research activities, including directed energy as
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well as complex and general weapons technologies. The contract is a
collaboration between Dstl, industry and academia, with stakeholders working together to plan, task and deliver
accelerated weapons S&T research and sustain critical skills and expertise, for development of future systems.
The government intends to build further on this to accelerate the
commercialisation and exploitation of novel weapons technologies, to stay ahead of our rivals and to realise the transformational opportunities they offer.
By working closely with our industrial base and international partners, we will seek to encourage investment focused on efficient exploitation to boost the
segment’s value to the UK’s economy and scientific edge, whilst protecting technologies with the potential to have significant battle winning effects.
Test & Evaluation
Test & Evaluation is vital to the
development and delivery of defence and security capabilities for the UK’s Armed Forces and security personnel.
In some cases, a UK based T&E capability is essential for quality
assurance, safety or operational security.
In other cases, the important element is to retain the ability to direct, understand, analyse and verify results rather than conduct testing onshore, subject to certain safeguards including security of supply. The government will work with industry to identify where such
distinctions can be safely made.
Our current strategic intent is to retain industrial capability within the UK, but to look for international cooperation where appropriate. As part of our longer-term strategy, we intend to develop future T&E capability for Novel Weapons, Artificial Intelligence, synthetic/digital systems and space-based systems. These are areas where designing cost-effective and realistic T&E processes are particularly challenging but necessary to deliver the Integrated Operating Concept, and success here would support new areas for UK industry and government to offer as export services. The same synthetic and digital environments used for T&E could also be used for design, concept and tactical development,
experimentation and potentially large-scale federated training. These could in turn lead to increased efficiency in acquisition, faster technological
refreshes, more cost-effective training at all levels, giving improved value for money and less environmental impact.
These are areas we are starting to consider under the T&E Futures
programme, in which we intend to invest over £60m over the next four years.
We already have a successful long-term partnering agreement (LTPA) with QinetiQ for many testing & evaluation functions and expect this partnership to play a continued, evolving role as we begin the transformation journey to the future T&E infrastructure we need. This infrastructure, both physical and in future digital, is an important part of the UK’s overall industrial landscape.
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As noted elsewhere in this white paper, we are also reviewing how we can give industry greater access to government labs and testing and evaluation facilities.
Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear (CBRN)
The UK has a world leading counter-CBRN capability through the
government’s in-house scientific expertise at Dstl which supports both defence and broader national security requirements.
There is also some niche private or academic industrial and scientific capability onshore, for which the
government has programmes and funding in place to secure continued access, to ensure our operational independence and to respond to events such as in Salisbury in 2018.
The supply chain for broader CBRN-related equipment and countermeasures is diverse and will remain global but we are already taking action, with the trade association CBRN UK, to improve our understanding and build in greater
resilience for some of the equipment and underlying materials. The government will continue to work closely with NATO on common standards and with international partners, such as the US and other allies, to maintain security of supply and to develop CBRN defence and security capabilities for the future.
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Taking a through-life approach to capability projects with industry - CRENIC CRENIC is the MOD’s future Force Protection Electronic Countermeasures programme that will deliver the next generation of capability to counter the threat posed from
Improvised Explosive Devices. This is a £400M procurement that will tender for a Systems Integrator (SI) partner to work with the MOD to design appropriate solutions through spiral delivery and an evolutionary support model. The SI partner will establish and sustain an ecosystem of vendors from which to identify innovative solutions and select best-in-class technology for projects. This approach will promote effective collaborative working between the MOD and industry to set realistic delivery targets, ensure system performance, and promote innovation with a strong focus on through life support and development. The approach is a model that could be used in other areas where we particularly prioritise operational independence and want to ensure timely spiral development.
The MOD has defined a technical architecture which includes common standards and promotes modularity and reconfigurable solutions. This comes with benefits such as reducing the lead time for capability upgrades. In this model, the MOD retains the role of Architecture Design Authority throughout, working with international partners to
encourage sharing of knowledge and expertise through strong existing relationships relevant to the project. The MOD has also revised its export policy to enable the SI partner, and other members of the ecosystem, to offer integrated solutions to the international market. The contract is expected to be awarded later this year.
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